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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24205621">to dream of the next</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlybride/pseuds/deadlybride'>deadlybride</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Episode: s09e22 Stairway to Heaven, First Time, M/M, Pining, Post-Episode: s10e03 Soul Survivor, Season/Series 08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 15:33:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,791</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24205621</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlybride/pseuds/deadlybride</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's been holding onto something unsaid, for years. He can deal with that. Dean can't.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>69</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>248</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>to dream of the next</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/nigeltde/gifts">nigeltde</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><i>I have only ever admitted what I hunger for under duress, when all of my other options have been exhausted and my escape routes cut off, and even then seek to downplay the nature of it in advance, the better to ward off disappointment.</i><br/>- Daniel Lavery</p><p>title from 'Oceans' by Pearl Jam.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After the second of the trials, when Sam’s back from Purgatory and Dean’s watching him nervously every day, it gets so much worse. Funny that, after everything, Sam didn’t know that it could get worse.</p><p>He’s used to his room, now, at least. At least, at last. His head hurts, almost all the time, and he’s found the right way to lay himself out on the bed so that it isn’t necessarily better but it doesn’t hurt more. It’s something. He has his hard mattress and his thin pillow and he lays on his back with his heels pressed all the way flat against the ridge of footboard, and he tries to keep his hands relaxed at his sides and not gripping the sheets, and he keeps his shoulders down and not cringing up at the pain. It helps. Control. Lots of things hurt, but he can decide how much he lets that matter. He grounds his heels against the footboard and looks at the ceiling and counts the revolutions of the slowly spinning fan and he can spend hours like that, days, with his room, with his loneliness.</p><p>Dean’s here and not here. Here when he hovers; gone when he’s thinking of things that aren’t Sam, that aren’t this bunker, that aren’t this world. He didn’t burn Benny’s bones. Sam worries on it like a rotting tooth. Benny helped and so Sam is grateful. He has to be grateful; it’d be ungrateful, otherwise. Sam isn’t going to be that. Dean’s best friend, apparently, who Dean decapitated because Sam was in danger, and Sam was supposed to carry him out again and he would’ve done that because Sam wasn’t going to be a disappointment this time except that Benny took that away from him, like he took away— and Dean said that he didn’t blame Sam except that Dean says lots of things, lately, and Sam can see that he’s thinking others, and Sam sat in the car because his muscles wouldn’t stop shuddering while Dean found a great ancient tree and spent a long time, a long time, digging a new grave for Benny, and laid his body to rest there in a place Dean could find it, and Sam pretended to sleep with his head braced against the window for the long drive back from Maine to Kansas and he didn’t rest once, aching, while Dean listened to the music too quiet and didn’t sing along.</p><p>Dean’s not here, now. Sam heard the front door creak, hours ago, and doesn’t know where Dean has gone. When he checks the clock it’s one in the morning and he hasn’t slept yet this week and he knows it’s probably not coming tonight, and certainly not if Dean’s gone. He unbraces, ungrounds, and puts his feet on the floor instead. Cold. Hurt in the skin, and in the muscle, and cording up through his tendons to his heart, which pounds. He listens to it thump in his hollow chest and stands, braces.</p><p>The room. The hall. The library. The stairs, two, down, and his knees surely break at the pressure except he’s still going, still steady, one foot in front of the other to the kitchen, and he sits at the table in front of four empty beer bottles which aren’t his, and he feels Dean, there. In the table and in the beer-brown glass, and in the kitchen. In the meal he tried to feed Sam earlier, fretting, and that Sam said was good until he threw it up, later, and he thinks Dean heard. Maybe he didn’t. Hard to say.</p><p>Sam’s having a hard time, lately, and that’s the facts. He curls down with his forehead on his clenched fists and braces. Heels solid on the floor, elbows on the table, skull solid against his knuckles with his thumbs in his eyes so the darkness sparkles achy-painful but it’s different to the ache that he feels all the rest of the time and this is where Dean is, was, will be, and so he sleeps here and in his dreams Dean sits across from him and touches his arm and says, <em>Sammy, I don’t know, </em>like he’s sorry, like he regrets it, and when he wakes up Dean is touching his arm and saying, "Jeez, man, if you’re gonna drool all over the table you could at least put down a napkin."</p><p>Sam sits up and—ah, it hurts. The world flashes at the edges. Like his visions from when he was a kid, pain doing its best for shock-and-awe, only he doesn’t think his nose is bleeding, and Dean isn’t touching him anymore. Not like he did, back then.</p><p>Dean’s here. Sam stretches his jaw, drags his hand over his face. No drool. Dickhead. He still thinks it as fondly as he ever has. His back pops in four different places and Dean’s fixing coffee, looking at Sam out of the corner of his eye like he’s being subtle. "You sleep there last night?" he says.</p><p>He’s wearing his boots, and his jacket, and the shirt Sam thinks he remembers from yesterday. On the wall the clock says it’s nine a.m. "Where’d you sleep last night?" Sam says, and he’s trying to sound—he doesn’t know, arch or jokey, teasing like he should, but he’s too tired.</p><p>Dean hears it, looks at him along his shoulder. Frowns. Sam drops his eyes to his hands and finds that they’re clenched too tight, and he stretches his fingers out flat on the table. Braces his weight, pushes up. "Have fun?" he says, and it comes out easier. Less like he’s trying to take a swing.</p><p>Bright in here. Dean looks at him. "Nah," he says, and shrugs one shoulder. Coffee in the filter, close lid, press button. He looks at that instead of Sam. "Didn’t even make any cash. Bars around here, no one’s willing to bet real money. Gotta go over to Wichita maybe."</p><p>Hustler, grifter. Cheater. Those are the things people would say to them when they scammed pool, back in the day. The thing is that they don’t have to do that anymore. The cards are too good; the fake names are better. Frank taught them how to do it so clean they’d never be caught. Dean says he does it for the fun of it, when the mood strikes. Sam believes him because Sam believes Dean. Now he does. He's made the choice to.</p><p>You can only cheat if you’re playing the same game as the other person. "Yeah, Wichita," Sam says, and smiles, and leaves the kitchen to take a shower and put on clothes and be a person. It's what he owes. A debt, because he was okay before and Dean wasn't, and now Dean wants him to be okay again and he has to because he promised, he made a promise, he's not going to go back on it even though—even when—</p><p>A body in a forest grave. So much buried there that it spills out onto the earth. Zombies, walking. Sam and Dean are supposed to kill zombies. Castiel stops by, and Dean grins at him and claps him on the shoulder, even if he's acting weird, even if they can't really trust him, and Sam thinks whole and entire in his head <em>zombie</em>, the word so intently real that it forms in his mouth and he has to press his tongue against his teeth to stop from saying it out loud. Cas frowns at him, puzzled, and behind Cas Dean is worried, waiting. Sam has to swallow twice to get the word out of his mouth.</p><p>Dean is here. Dean is here and there are no other worlds they can go to. The dead are dead and Dean was still there in that cabin when Sam came back. He was fixing chili at that shitty stove, and he braced his hands on the counter when Sam came in the door and Sam saw him sigh, but when Sam closed the door quiet behind him Dean picked up his spoon and stirred the chili again, and said, <em>you eaten yet?</em> with his voice steady, and that meant more than the dead meant, than other worlds meant. It was a choice and that meant something. It had to. It has to.</p><p>Sometimes when Sam lays himself on the bed and puts his heels on the footboard and makes sure his hands are flat on the sheet he thinks about that night, in the cabin. Sometimes when he thinks about Dean the first thing he thinks about is that sigh. Wishes that he'd been able to see Dean's face so he would've known what it meant, on that day and in that place. If his choice had been the same as Sam's choice.</p><p>Sam gets a fever and Dean is here and Sam wishes he weren't. He sleeps in snatches and hears Dean's boots in the hall, and his skin aches and he sees Dean see him flinch as a blanket touches his skin, and his stomach shrivels to a ball and he knows Dean worries but the hunger hasn't left Sam, or at least not the hunger that matters.</p><p>He has a fever. He takes a shower and the water hurts but he can't stop shaking, and so he turns it hotter. Steam in the air, in his lungs. Burning him clean except, of course, he is not clean. He stands there shuddering in the scalding water until he can't stand it, and then he can't stand. He crumples, the tile cold. Still shaking, his teeth chattering, but his mind strangely clear.</p><p>Clear. First time in—weeks. He scrunches back against the shower wall, lets his legs stretch out. He's shaking so hard that his teeth actually hurt as they clatter together, but then so much hurts that he doesn't know why he focuses on that. He breathes and feels his mind settle out. Rippling water smoothing to glass. Heels hard against the tile, his hands on his thighs. Water still running, against his shoulder, and it's so hot his skin lobsters. Can't remember last time he had a sunburn. It's always Dean who gets the sunburn.</p><p>His stomach clenches and there it is again. Here, and not here, because he doesn't want it, has always pushed it away until he can't anymore. Well, he's arrived at can't, or maybe passed it long since. He touches his empty stomach and leans his head against the wall and breathes in deep.</p><p>Ivory tile and black tile, and the mirrors, and the sinks. The towels stacked on the bench where Dean leaves them, neatly folded when Sam would've said in other lives that Dean didn't know how to be neat. Maybe he wasn't paying attention. Spent too much time looking away, maybe, like that'd help.</p><p>The door opens. Dean. "Sam."</p><p>Like it's a sentence by itself. Sam guesses it is—he hears the exasperation, the worry. Boots in the shower pan, Dean fully dressed like he's heading out somewhere, or came back. Here and not here. The stream of water scalding Sam's shoulder turns off and he shivers, hard, harder when he'd almost tamed it, and his teeth chatter and Dean's there, crouching and wrapping a towel over his chest, squeezing his arms. "Jeez, dude, you trying to drown in here? Good thing we don't have a water bill, huh? Can't leave me to deal with your naked corpse, man, that's not cool, especially when—"</p><p>Chatter. He's nervous. Sam can't work up the strength to take the towel, even if the terrycloth's chafing painful against his too-sensitive skin, but Dean's—here, here, looking at Sam all over. His eyes, darting so Sam can't see them, but they're that deep gold-green, the lashes long and dark. Sam remembers. What's more important is the squared-off strength in his hand, grounding and steady on Sam's shoulder, and the line of his neck, the creamy line where the tan cuts off. Freckles there. Even there.</p><p>"Sam, you gotta work with me," Dean says and Sam—Sam wasn't here, Sam was somewhere else. Somewhere green. Black-and-white, here, and Dean in a red shirt, and Dean's face steady and hovering above Sam's. His knees are wet. Sam touches one. Wet, and warm. "Sammy, jesus. Are you okay? You gotta talk to me, man."</p><p>"I'm here," Sam says, and that's true. He wasn't before. He was somewhere green, and that was a forest too, a warmer one than the one in Maine. He was standing in the shade of a huge oak and Dean was grinning at him, giving him shit about something or other because that was always what Dean was doing, and Sam hadn't had a lot then because that was the year that Dean was going to die and without Dean Sam wasn't going to have much of anything at all, and he'd had the hunger then, first. Maybe he'd had it before, in dreams or in passing thoughts, but that day it arrived all whole at once and he'd been able to picture it, clear in his head, staring at Dean and thinking—thinking—</p><p>Snapping fingers, in front of his face. "Sam," Dean says, and Sam is here. His fever maybe is worse than he thought. "You're too big on a good day and you're too damn slippery for me to get a grip. You've got to help. We're going to get you stood up, okay, and we're going to get you some clothes because this is just—a lot of little brother on display right now—and then we're going to get you to the hospital, all right? Or I'm going to knock you out and call an ambulance and then the police are gonna know where our top-secret hideout is, and c'mon, you know you don't want to give up the top-secret hideout. Right? Sam. Sammy, please."</p><p>Sam lifts a hand, touches his face. Dean blinks. Green. It had been summer. "I wanted so bad, then," Sam says, and gets his hand under Dean's jaw so Dean can't turn away. He'd gone back there, when Dean disappeared from that stupid office, on that stupid horrible day. Dean gone, Cas gone, Crowley not answering, all of them gone from the world and Sam didn't know how to get them back.</p><p>That forest. It was humid and mosquitos stung him and it wasn't worth the ground it stood on because Dean was gone. Sam should've burnt it down. "I went there. Remembered how it was. Back then I thought, maybe then he'd see what it was gonna mean if he left. But you went anyway."</p><p>"Went—what? Went where? Sam, you're being—you've got to stand up."</p><p>Where. Sam knew the first time; the second was a mystery. He drags his thumb over Dean's chin, the prickle of it making him shiver, and he—wants. He can't articulate it any better than that, with his brain not cooperating, and he wants to cry suddenly like he hasn't since he stood in that awful green forest.</p><p>He doesn't, of course. He lets his hand drop and catches Dean's shirt, crumpling the red of it in his wet hand. "Sorry, Dean," he says, and closes his eyes. "I wish I didn't. But don't worry. Okay? It's not on you."</p><p>"Sam," Dean says, and it's very close. His hair gets pushed back from his face, wet and resisting, and Dean's skin feels the same temperature as his own. He stopped shaking, at some point. He drags his legs up beneath him and gropes for Dean's hands. Grip, bones settling alongside each other. He braces, and Dean's arm comes around his back, and together they stand. Sam nearly falls again, getting up, but that's okay. There's Dean's arm, to ground against.</p><p>*</p><p>Gadreel's gone. His blood spattered on the floor. Sam asked Cas to clean it up but he didn't stop to explain—Cas might be using his own trenchcoat and dishwashing detergent, for all Sam knows. Or cares.</p><p>Dean's pacing, inside the dungeon. Sam can't hear it but he knows. He stands outside the ridiculous secret-door bookshelves and can picture it, perfectly. Dean, clenching his fists, his shoulders rounded and ready for a fight. Pacing like a captured predator. It's been in his eyes, if he hasn't been doing it in fact, and Sam's tired of it—afraid of it—worried about it. So damn worried, when he'd sworn that he'd be done with worrying, after—everything. More fool him. These last months have been murder.</p><p>Maybe not the best choice of words. He passes a hand over his face, unutterably tired. Too much to worry about and too much riding on everything. Still. He has to try. He'll never again get away with not trying.</p><p>Dean's standing very still at the edge of the demon trap when Sam opens the doors. "Change your mind?" he says. Acid. "About time. We've got to go after Metatron—we don't have time for this shit."</p><p>"Yeah, we do," Sam says. He slides one of the shelves back in behind him. If Dean tries a flying tackle for the remaining space, Sam might go down, but he can still wrestle Dean back. Superpowers or no. Dean's silent, looking at him. Sam smiles, briefly, but he bets it doesn't look cheerful. "He's still going to be a dick if we go after him now or in an hour. He's predictable that way."</p><p>Dean smirks at him—<em>smirks</em>. Sam's gut turns over, a physical sensation. "Funny," he says, while Sam's swallowing down vague nausea. "You know more people might be dying while you're making your funny jokes." The smirk falls off his face. Small mercies. He steps forward, hands spread, all reasonable. Con man. "Give me the blade, Sam. We've got to take him out and you know I'm the only shot at doing it."</p><p>Sam sucks the inside of his cheek. Dean's moving very slow but his path's obvious. Sam grabs the metal chair at the table and drags it over, the legs scratching loud over the cement, and sets it right in the path of the open door, and sits down, and folds his hands in his lap. Dean stops in his tracks, drops his hands. A sour curl to his lip. He's stopped in the bright ring of one of the overhead lights and Sam can see every detail of him. Faint red rim to his eyes, and the bitten chap of his lips. Green. It twinges at that old memory, the one he packs away.</p><p>"You really fucked me over," Sam says. His voice cracks on it and he swallows. Dean looks away, his jaw clenching. Sam's not sure Dean has the capacity for shame, anymore. If he ever would feel it, for this. "You know? You said that it was you and me, no matter what. I believed you."</p><p>"I wasn't lying," Dean says. He turns his head back and his face is stone. Uncompromising. He tilts his head, takes another step. Sam gauges the distance—he still can't make it in a single lunge. "You know what you said? You made me a promise, too."</p><p>Sam shakes his head. He doesn't want to hear about that fight again. He knew Dean didn't understand what he was saying even as it was coming out of his mouth. "Dean—"</p><p>"Not then," Dean says. His eyes are intent, focused. Really looking at Sam. "Back before. The first trial. The hellhound, right? The one you took out from under me. And I let you, because you promised that you wanted to live. That we were going to make it, both of us. For once. That there was—" he huffs, bitter—"—light, at the end of the tunnel. So what happened to that, Sam?"</p><p>That night. Sam remembers. It's not the same, but Sam's—is he even angry about it, anymore? He can hardly tell. He's just tired, and scraped out. So much shit to worry about and Dean's always at the top of the list no matter how much Sam tries to budge him, and even now. With his anger, and his danger, and how he keeps treating Sam like the enemy. What comes around, Sam thinks, and puts his hands over his face, unable to bear it for another second.</p><p>"You and me," Sam says. His voice feels strange. He hopes Dean doesn't come and crash through the door while he's—what? Having a breakdown? He laughs, drags his hands through his hair. Dean's frowning at him. Yeah, what else is new.</p><p>"There's something I never told you," Sam says. He leans back, lets the chair brace him. Dean's frowning, but uncertain now. Dean's never liked Sam's secrets. Well, this one's a doozy. He smiles. God. Even now. His jaw, and his hair soft on the sides. Sam's touched it a few times. Never enough. Never in a way that meant something. "I never thought it'd matter. I put it away. Over and over. All the shit we've been through and I thought that'd kill it, but it never did."</p><p>He doesn't know why he's bothering to say it out loud. Dean's frowning because of course he is but Sam's just—tired. He's just tired, and he doesn't have anywhere else to go. No other life but this one. They've made sure of that, between the two of them, and he can't pretend he's anything other than what he is.</p><p>He stands up, stomach aching. His head too, and his empty hands, and his chest. He steps closer and Dean's jaw sets, like they're going to get in a fight, but Sam only reaches out and touches Dean's sternum, lightly. He doesn't flinch away, and he's warm. Sam looks at his hand and not at Dean's face. "You fucker," he says, soft, and that aches too. All that should've killed it and it just won't die. Zombies, ever rising.</p><p>He bites the inside of his cheek and lets his hand drop. Dean's staring at him, mouth parted. Sam doesn't know what he's surprised about. "I'll come down and check on you in a while," he says, rancor drained away. "Me and Cas will figure out a plan. You just—you just try to calm down, okay. We'll get you better."</p><p>"Sam," Dean says, a question tucked inside it, but Sam's already at the bookcase, and sliding it closed. His last glimpse of Dean before all that comes after is of Dean staring at him, an uncertainty rising in his face, before the case slides shut and Sam locks it again. Uncertainty's something, at least, after all the awful serial-killer intensity. He rests his head against the metal shelf, taking a second.</p><p>"Sam!" Dean shouts, muffled, and there's a rattle through the shelf as he slams something against the door. Out of nowhere, Sam remembers Bobby's panic room. How punching the metal rattled his bones all the way to the shoulder. He tilts his forehead against the shelf, letting the reverberations of Dean's anger flinch against his skin—and then braces his hands against the shelf and pushes away, and goes to deal with the next problem.</p><p>*</p><p>After this run the Impala's going to smell like fast food even worse. Sam hasn't had time to clean it, since getting it back—dirt in the corners of the windshield, and empty bottles on the floorboards, and that greasy smell that clogs the back of the throat. Doesn't matter. His heart's light, in a dizzy uncertain way, and he can drive one-handed pretty well anyway but in this car it's easy as breathing. Had to go a ways for decent takeout but that's okay, too. He knows what's waiting back at the bunker, when he gets home.</p><p>Big gold car still parked up top, when he turns down the drive. In the dark he only makes out Cas's coat in the flash of the headlights, and he pauses before going down, cracks the door. "Everything good?"</p><p>Cas nods, grave. "He's tired," he says. Sam feels himself smile, for some reason. Who isn't? Cas nods at his car, where that other angel must still be waiting. "I must deal with other things. Will you be able to handle this on your own?"</p><p>Sam shrugs his unhurt shoulder. "It's Dean," he says, and that's really all there is to it.</p><p>He pilots the car down into its space, pride of place in the garage. A little battered, a little messed up, but it still looks right there. That empty space, full.</p><p>The burgers are probably cold but he's seen Dean eat three day old omelets out of a greasy pan. Sam leaves the bags on the map table and goes into the library to find what little of the bourbon he didn't kill off. He had to stop the hard drinking when Dean was three days gone—all he can afford, when Dean's gone. Glass, three fingers, and he smells it for a second, sweet and stinging, before he knocks it back. Three swallows, and they burn, and the heat of it sinks to the pit of his stomach like red coals. Hurts, feels good. Finally, some kind of warm, and he stands there licking his lips and feeling the huge burrow of the bunker unfurl its space around him—unempty. At last.</p><p>"Dean," he calls. Loud, but not desperate. "Food's here, come on."</p><p>Two glasses poured and he sets the map table—a chicken sandwich for him that he's weirdly looking forward to, cold fries he steals from Dean's bag. Soggy, but salty. He wonders for a second if the salt in all those junk food wrappers stung at Dean's mouth, these last weeks, and the swallow goes down harder at the thought but—it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, now.</p><p>No sound, down the hallway. Sam drains his second glass. Doesn't burn as much, this time. "Dean," he calls again, and there's no response, and he sighs. Brief flare of fear in his gut that he tamps down, because—no. Cas has been here, and Crowley left this to them. No one else can get in and Dean wouldn't—he wouldn't leave. Sam's almost sure he wouldn't leave.</p><p>The hall. Sam ignores the shattered electrical door, and the hole in the wall. He'll give Dean shit for that some other night. Dean's door, and quiet behind it, and Sam stands in front of it for a second, adjusting his sling, before he knocks.</p><p><em>Yeah</em>, muffled inside. He goes in.</p><p>Dean's sitting on the side of his bed, his eyes on the floor. Still clean—he hasn't shattered lamps, torn his guns down. "Got food," Sam says, easy. "Come eat. You probably need it."</p><p>His head drops another few inches; unhappy curve at the corner of his mouth. Sam's never met someone who smiles as unhappily as his brother. "Sam," he says, unsarcastic and uncruel, and he hesitates after but that doesn't matter because that, that was all Sam really needed, right now.</p><p>"Hey." Dean bites the inside of his lip, but he turns his head and actually looks at Sam. Eyes all shadow but not black. Sam smiles and means it. "We'll deal with the crap later, okay? Right now we just need—food. It's been like—a day and a half, okay, I'm starving. I got Big Star, man. Special treat."</p><p>Slow nod, and Dean raises his eyebrows, puts on a face. "Six dollar burger? Spoiling me, Sam."</p><p>"Yeah, I am," Sam says, and jerks his head toward the hall, and Dean walks a half-step behind him, out past the hole the hammer made when Dean swung it at Sam's head, and turning the corner past the torn-up door, and down into the big open pit of their home that doesn't feel as much like a pit, with two people in it.</p><p>Six dollar burger, cheddar cheese and extra onions. Sam remembers the order. He got two. He steals more of Dean's fries, because that's his right, and Dean scoffs and pushes his hand away. It's weak, but he's trying. Or trying to try. Amounts to the same thing, as far as Sam's concerned, and it's all right if they're not really talking, if Dean's little banter (<em>oh yeah, chicken sandwich, you watching your figure?</em>) amounts to nothing, because.</p><p>There was a night when Dean was gone and Sam had worn himself thin from looking, and Sam and Cas had just barely escaped that fight with the demons alive, and his shoulder was emanating pain through his whole body like a striking gong because Cas wasn't strong enough to heal it and Sam was out of pills and, anyway, didn't want a palliative. It was something to focus on that wasn't the place where Dean should've been and wasn't. Sam sat here at the map table and he didn't drink, because he knew where that led, but he couldn't sleep and he couldn't eat and there were no leads, anywhere. He hadn't yet done the worst things he could do, or would do, but they were boiling up there in the back of his head anyway. Plans, and how to accomplish them. People he could press beyond breaking if he needed to. That night he sat at the table and the coming days, weeks, months spooled out in front of him, but what he was thinking about, really, was that moment, years ago. A green forest and Dean smiling, sloppy. Dangerous, enough that it cut up Sam's heart to see him, but it was worth it, then, and despite all the twists and turns after—in the end it always has been.</p><p>There's beer, to go along with the last dregs of the bourbon. Dean finishes his burger and drains a bottle. Grabs another. Sam holds out his own bottle for a toast, his heart thudding, and Dean hesitates like Sam expected him to but he knocks the bottle necks gently together in the end, a clink that makes Sam instantly smile, and he looks down at the table to hide it.</p><p>"You know," Sam says, and realizes then that he's kind of tipsy. A little weighted drag at the back of his skull. Tips his head back, relaxing into the chair. Dean's got his eyes pinned to his hands, holding his beer. "I've been buying the Bells since you left. No more El Sol in the place. You've got bad taste in beer, man."</p><p>Like Sam cares about the brand of beer. It was what they had at Ladow's for some reason and he bought it, all five cases, to lay in supply. He just wants Dean to talk to him, to tease. Tell him he's a fool so Sam can kick him under the table. He's been missing him so bad. That.</p><p>Dean gives up a brief half-smile—unsmile—and then his mouth twists, curves. His jaw flexes and he runs his hand over his too-long hair, leans forward with his elbows on the table. Still doesn't look up. "Sammy," he says, and works his jaw again. "Sam. I—the stuff I said."</p><p>Sam blinks. It feels heavy. Booze and two, three days of not sleeping beyond catnaps. He was going to put it away with everything else. "It's nothing, man," he says.</p><p>He's practiced. It really is. Dean looks up at him though, finally, and his face is—plane crashes, wildfires. "It's not nothing," he says, wretched.</p><p>Sam picks at the label on his beer. He feels anchored to his chair. His shoulder hurts. The sling chafes at the back of his neck, not enough of a distraction.</p><p>Dean, black-eyed. Not his brother but holding the memories of him. Sam knows what it's like. He doesn't remember deliberately being cruel, when it was his turn, but then being soulless is different from having your soul corrupted, and what had come out of black-eyed Dean's mouth had been—corrupt. Sam already decided, though. He was putting it away. He was folding it down, shelving it, and they were going to move on and it wasn't going to be exactly the same, maybe, as it was—even when he was twenty-two he'd known that nothing was ever, ever the same as it was, no matter how hard you wished it could be—but it'd be close. They'd manage.</p><p>"Sam, I'm…" Dean starts, and trails. They're not good at apologizing. Not when it's fresh. Sam doesn't need him to but he can't seem to make his mouth work to tell Dean so. His mouth tucks up again, a not-smile, and Sam says, "Stop making that face," and Dean looks at him head on, fully and entirely here. All Sam wanted from him. All he can let himself want.</p><p>"Sam," Dean says again.</p><p>Sam closes his eyes, lets his head turn away. Heavy, heavy. This big old place, dragging always at him, jobs to do and chores to get lost in. Dean to worry over. Dean shouldn't have to worry back, except of course he does. Sam's big brother, he won't ever stop worrying.</p><p>Black-eyed, Dean had said, cruel, <em>you think I don't see it? You think you're being—what, subtle? Big-brained Sammy, trying so hard. You think if you don't say it loud it doesn't make it true? What are you, four?</em></p><p>"Sam," Dean says, and Sam says, "Leave it alone, Dean," because if it's not said out loud—what does it matter? What could it matter? It's part of him but there are all kinds of parts of him that never will see the light of day and he's made his peace with that long since, and there's no good that'd come from unburying them.</p><p>"For god's sake," Dean says, rough, and there's the rattle of his chair wheels on the concrete and when Sam opens his eyes Dean's—here. Here. In front of him, crouching, his hand curled around the arm of Sam's chair below where his elbow's planted, and he looks sore, hurting. "I shouldn't've—Sammy, I swear, I didn't mean it. Didn't mean any of it."</p><p>"I know," Sam says, and he does. Sour soulless words scoured across his own heart—he knows. Uncaring and cruel sometimes feel like the same thing.</p><p>Black-eyed Dean had danced around it, even so. Like the implication was bad enough.</p><p>Dean licks his lips, bites the bottom one. Lets it go and Sam can see the dent of his teeth. "But you—" he says. Stubble on his jaw too heavy, and his hair too long, but his eyes—the same, and more careful. Asking, when Sam never wanted him to.</p><p>"It's okay," Sam says, and waves his good hand. His other's against his stomach, gripping into his shirt, and he tries to relax but his knuckles feel sore. He smiles at Dean and it feels natural, so he hopes it looks that way. "Dean, I—it's not a big deal. We don't have to talk about it."</p><p>"Jesus," Dean says, on a burst of breath, and Sam shakes his head, because—but then Dean's hand is there on the side of his face, heavy, and he drags a thumb over Sam's cheek, and he's frowning but he shifts, goes to one knee, leans—up—and Sam's frozen, there, while Dean pushes their mouths together. Mush of lips, too hard. Sam sucks in air and Dean tilts his head, makes it better, softer, a kiss. A kiss.</p><p>He pulls back, looks at Sam. Sam breathes. His hand is crumpled in the collar of Dean's red shirt and he lets go, folds that hand over the other on his stomach, turns his face. The map. The fast food bags crumpled and empty, beer bottles everywhere. His mouth, still tasting like—beer, and onion, but not just that. Not just that. He licks his bottom lip and wishes he hadn't.</p><p>"Say something," Dean says.</p><p>Sam can't for a second. For more than a second. He holds the air in his lungs and his throat's frozen. Dean's still touching his face, knuckles curled against his jaw, and Sam feels the warmth in them and turns his head again to feel them drag against his stubble and says, "Don't," not realizing until that instant that that's what was in his mouth. "Don't."</p><p>Dean's eyes dart between his and Sam can't—can't, pushes back from the table, stands. The moment's dragging away from him, his head starting to get that low throb that's a precursor to a massive headache. God, he needs sleep. He picks up a burger wrapper, crumples it. Clean up, that's—</p><p>His good shoulder, pulled—Dean's hand, and Sam moves with it, too turned-over to resist like he ought to. His hip against the table, Dean close enough to feel like he's crowding. Looking up, eyes all over Sam's face. Looking <em>up</em>. Funny—when Dean's gone for too long, Sam forgets that he's the taller one.</p><p>"Sam," Dean says. Careful like he never is. Almost never. Sam looks down into his face and it's still—so. So. Dean blinks, his lips firming, softening. Like he's screwing himself up. He holds Sam's good arm just below the elbow, doesn't let him get away. "I'm the last goddamn person who gets to—to demand anything here. Okay? I get that. But you've gotta—you gotta tell me the truth, okay."</p><p>"Why," Sam says.</p><p>Dean frowns at him. Shakes his head, shakes Sam's arm. "Because," he says, and Sam snorts, and Dean reaches up and touches his face again, looking Sam in the eye. "You—"</p><p>"It doesn't matter," Sam says—feels like it's for the hundredth time—and Dean says, "Fuck that, fuck that, Sam—" and pushes his hand into Sam's hair and lifts up and kisses him, again, and that time Sam shudders and grips at Dean's shoulder, breathes and tastes Dean's breath, and Dean's mouth is wet, soft—giving against his, their beards rough together, and Dean pulls back first, says <em>fuck</em> under his breath, and then says, nearly as quiet, "I never—I wasn't ever going to…"</p><p>They breathe. Sam tips his head down, temple brushing Dean's. God, his skin is warm. Dean slides his hand up Sam's arm, grips his shoulder—prescient, apparently, as Sam jerks backwards at about the same time and is arrested, stuck there against the table with Dean holding him. "Let go," Sam says, firm like he isn't dizzy with Dean's mouth—<em>twice</em>—and Dean says, "No," and he says, "Sam, tell me. Tell me."</p><p>"Why?" says Sam again, aching, pulling at Dean's grip. "Dean, I—you don't have to. It's on me, it's not—I don't want this, not like—"</p><p>"Like what—"</p><p>"Like this is—payment, or something," Sam bursts out, and the nasty implications of that boil up in his head. Dean spreading his legs because Sam cured him, made him not a demon anymore just to fuck him over another way—fuck, fuck, he does jerk away then, because even with one arm down and weeks of barely eating he's still got Dean outclassed on weight, and he stumbles back around the other side of the map table, knocking over a bottle as he goes. Fuck.</p><p>"Sammy," Dean says, and Sam puts his hand over his eyes. "Sam, I swear it's not."</p><p>"Oh, you swear," Sam says, miserable.</p><p>Dean says, "Yeah, man. What, you want me to pinky promise?" Frailest edge of humor—still weak, as weak as the teasing had been. Atrophied muscles.</p><p>Sam breathes hard, tries to remember how to walk. So he can walk out of here, and go down to sleep on his bed, and lie with his back flat and his heels grounded and pretend none of this happened.</p><p>"I couldn't figure it out," Dean says. It's quiet, somewhere out there in the dark beyond Sam. "What you kept—you said a bunch of crap but I couldn't ever understand it. You're a cryptic son of a bitch, you know that?"</p><p>"Yeah," Sam says. It comes out whispery.</p><p>"How long?" Dean says.</p><p>A forest. Dean was going to die and they were hunting something—a ghost, a ghoul. It hardly mattered when everything in Sam was bound up in the time ticking away. Every day a stone slipping through his fingers and Dean frayed-edged, grinning, pretending like it didn't matter, like his death wouldn't count in the grand scheme. They'd been tracking something and the day had been warm and Dean had looked at Sam with his eyes green as the leaves around them and said—he'd said—</p><p>"I don't know," Sam says, like that's true, and he drops his hand and looks at his boots. Dirt on the toes, scuffing up the concrete. "How long for you?" Caustic.</p><p>"It was—" Dean says, and bites it off.</p><p>Sam looks up. Dean's miserable, too, his shoulders low. He wraps an arm around his ribs and shakes his head. Steps around the table, keeps his eyes on Sam, steady, and Sam's—stuck, watching his face. His eyes are open, clear. Sam has always been able to tell when he's being honest. Dean stops, a half-step from Sam, and Sam reaches out. A dream. To touch Dean's chest, with his spread fingertips, and flatten his palm over Dean's warmth. He slides, holds the side of Dean's neck—feels his pulse hammering there, blood strong and clean. Dean tips his head, just slightly—just enough, the weight catching in Sam's hand—and Sam steps forward, hardly daring, and presses his body against Dean's body. Not a dream. The big lights leave no room to hide. Dean's lashes dip, but he doesn't move other than to curl a hand into the hem of Sam's flannel shirt, and Sam shifts his weight and feels his thigh slide against Dean's—the shock standing the hair on his neck on end because Dean still doesn't move, or evaporate into nothing, or shove him onto his back and empty a clip into his chest as would be his right. How long, Sam thinks, frayed, but Dean's eyes have dropped to his mouth and Sam dips, tilts. Their noses brush and Dean's breath is warm, and when Sam kisses him by choice it's—</p><p>Dean's hand sinks into his hair, fast—Sam holds the back of Dean's head and the soft new growth splits through his fingers like wheat, like velvet. Their lips move slow and Dean's are chapped, full, as soft as Sam had ever hoped, when he'd been cruel enough to himself to hope. Dean's lips part on a breath and Sam pushes his mouth further open, licks inside, and Dean grabs at his side, pushes in closer, tipping his head for it, and Sam—</p><p>"God, I wish you didn't have this sling," Dean mumbles, up against his mouth, and Sam laughs, shaky. "Bad timing."</p><p>"You're telling me," Sam says, and Dean kisses his jaw, inexplicably, and dips to the side of his throat and breathes there, wet-hot, so that Sam shudders from shoulders to hips. "Dean, I—"</p><p>"No," Dean says, muffled against his skin. "C'mon—Sam—" and Sam doesn't know why that argument carries but it does, it does, Dean just pressing against him and sliding a hand up Sam's flannel, his undershirt, touching bare flinching skin. It feels like nothing should feel. Sam tucks a finger into Dean's jeans pocket and tugs him closer and feels his gut start to wake up, out of the terrified insane haze, and Dean tips his head back and looks at him, his eyes darker but entirely his own, and he's—here. Here.</p><p>"What are we doing," Sam says, and Dean blinks, weight tipping back, before Sam says: "No, I mean—I mean, what are we—Dean, I don't—"</p><p>"Whatever you want," Dean says, instantly, raw. Meaning it in a way that Sam feels down to his balls. Fuck—his dick, waking up, and Dean sees it in his face and his mouth curves, a tiny flash of smile. "Yeah? Sammy."</p><p>"You're an asshole," Sam says, not meaning it even a little, and Dean sees that too but he doesn't poke back. He touches Sam's chest, hooks his fingers into the split of the flannel. Shakes a little, and it's grounding somehow. Sam slides his hand to Dean's hip, squeezes. Says, "I don't know. It's been—I don't know."</p><p>"Yeah," Dean says, and bites the corner of his mouth. Looks Sam in the eyes. "How about we start easy. You want to—we could be done. Or we could stay here. Or we could try—we could go somewhere else."</p><p>Sam imagines going to bed by himself, having had a taste of this. Fucking no. Here—the map table, and the chairs sliding away from leverage—or a bedroom. That's traditional. He imagines Dean's room and that's a no, too—too much, there, the flash of corpse-pale waxy skin in the amber light—"My room," he says, and Dean blinks heavy at that like he took a shot of whiskey to the gut but he says, "Okay," easy, and it's—so weird, so weird, to disentangle, to look at Dean's shirt rucked up a little, to see Dean's eyes skip from his chest to his mouth. Away, to the shadowed corner under the stairs, to nothing.</p><p>Reality dips in, asserts. This is insane. Sam takes a deep breath, awkward history crashing over his head. This is his brother. His brother.</p><p>"I ain't holding your hand," Dean says, to the shadow, and then looks at him sidelong. Tries a smile, and it's real this time, even if it's hard come by.</p><p>Not fair, to meet that with misery. "Like anyone asked you to?" Sam says, and walks off instead, his back feeling like a firing squad's taking aim. But there are Dean's boots, on the two steps behind him, and Dean saying, "You kidding? People fight over holding my hand, this thing's won awards," and it's stupid, weak attempts, but it gets them down the hall and past the door and past the hole that'll need plastering over and it gets them to door 21, hanging open. Sam flicks on the lamp and Dean closes the door against—against Sam doesn't know what, this place is empty of anything but them and memory, but then he's braced with his back against it, looking at Sam standing there, and he shakes his head again—why?—and pushes off, and Sam catches him around the waist with his one good arm and meets the kiss on his own terms, and at last there's no taste of beer or burgers but only of—of Dean, of their spit, and Dean's—he's unbuttoning Sam's shirt, fingers busy between them.</p><p>Makes Sam's gut throb, again, and lower. "You're a lot," Sam says, nothing but honest. Dean glances up at him, says, "I've heard," quieter than Sam expected, and he's got Sam's shirt open and of course there's the undershirt below but Dean seems satisfied even with that, dragging his hand over Sam's chest, holding his ribs when he lifts up for another kiss. Sam touches his ear, his throat. Balances and heel-toes his way out of his boots, and then pushes back, sits on the bed.</p><p>He's breathing heavy, just from this. Dean, too. He licks his lips and Sam has to close his eyes for a second, dazed. A rustle and when Sam looks Dean's on his knees, again, in front of the bed instead of the chair and instead of being appalling it's—it's still appalling, but it's making Sam's dick lengthen against the inside of his jeans. Jesus. Dean, like that.</p><p>He knows, too. The corners of his mouth tip up, half a second, and he puts his hands on Sam's thighs. He opens his mouth like he's going to say something, but a split-second pause and he leans in and kisses Sam, instead, and slips in between Sam's parted knees, and his hand goes higher and higher on Sam's thigh, his thumb dragging against the inside. Sam bites his lower lip, soft, and Dean grunts and then—yeah, he gets his hand settled right against Sam's crotch, and Sam tips his head back on his shoulders, breathing out at the still ceiling fan.</p><p>"Yeah?" Dean says, but he's not really asking. He's not hesitant, or startled. Dean's done this before—with a guy, before. God, to know that. He goes for Sam's belt, easy, tugging open, and Sam grabs his shoulder, feels the bone and muscle shift under his grip. Dean's fast—practiced—undoing the button, the zip, and his fingers tuck into the waistband of Sam's boxers, tugging the elastic, knuckles against Sam's belly. Sam looks at him and finds Dean's attention fixed there, low, and he glances up at Sam and then dips his hand in, squeezes Sam's dick through the thin-washed cotton of the briefs. Muffled through the fabric but firm, warm, and Sam's hips curl into it. Fuck, it feels—he hasn't even jerked off, in way too long, and this—Dean's hand—</p><p>"Yeah?" Dean says, again, and Sam says, "Stop fucking saying that," breathless, which makes Dean grin—flash of teeth—and he leans in closer, fists Sam easy through the boxers, kisses Sam's throat, his collarbone. Sam holds his head, his shoulder again, balling up the thick cotton, lurches into it.</p><p>Dean, breathing against his skin—Dean, holding him, pumping deep and experienced—Sam's gut spirals, his balls draw up, too soon—too soon, and he grabs Dean's arm, his elbow, shoves at Dean's shirt and says stuttery like he never, ever has been during sex, "I—I need you to—get this off, get it off—" and Dean looks at him with a wet mouth and nods, leans back and wrestles off the red shirt and then hauls the black tee over his head, ruffling up his newly-long hair in the process—his tattoo, unmarked when Sam was sure somehow Crowley would've shredded it off Dean's skin—his skin, cream—and hot, when Sam slides his arm around Dean's shoulders and tugs at him—and Dean crawls up onto the bed while Sam shoves himself backwards, so there's enough room for Dean to—Sam drops to his back, and it hurts his bad arm when he falls but so what, so what. Dean's on his knees, straddling Sam's hips, and he braces one arm by Sam's shoulders and fumbles Sam's dick out of the slit of his boxers, bare skin on bare skin at last—hot, firm, dry but the friction just drives Sam's hips up into his grip, fuck—</p><p>"You like that?" Dean says, breathing hard, voice weird and too-friendly. Porno soundtrack, of course. Sam grabs his thigh, squeezes hard through the denim, pumps his dick up. Squeeze under the head, jesus, Dean really does know what he's doing. "Yeah—yeah, Sammy—"</p><p>"Do you ever shut up?" Sam says, thin, and Dean ducks and kisses him instead of answering, uncoordinated and the angle a little off, jerking Sam the whole time, and Sam bites him again, harder, and Dean groans loud and wild but doesn't pull away—oh—like maybe—</p><p>"You like that?" Sam whispers, and Dean squeezes his dick <em>hard</em> so that Sam crushes his hips up, lifting Dean's weight with the thrust, and that just has Sam thinking about—oh, if maybe—</p><p>"Sammy, jesus," Dean mumbles, and Sam scrambles one-handed for Dean's belt, tugging at the leather ineptly, says <em>help me, c'mon</em> and Dean pants into his mouth and lifts up, opens up his belt and his jeans, and Sam struggles upright enough that he can curl forward and dig Dean's dick out, too—half hard, with no attention, and Sam's never—with another guy, he's never done this, but the mechanics he's pretty sure are the same. Dean breathes hard, going higher on his knees, holding Sam by the back of the neck, and Sam licks his palm and jerks him slow, a squeezing pull up and up, learning the shape. A slight curve, and the color pinker, redder, the flare at the crown more pronounced. Sam drags his thumb up the underside, scrubs sloppy in that same spot that for him makes his eyes cross, and sure enough Dean groans, grips his hair almost too tight. Sam wonders if—with his tongue—and he slides his thumb over the head where there's that gleam of shine in Dean's slit and says, "God, I wish my arm were—"</p><p>"Fuck," Dean says, eloquent as always. He shoves his hips into Sam's hand and then pulls back—away, off to stand, kicking his boots off. "What'd you do? Huh? Tell me."</p><p>Sam breathes hard, watching. Dean shoves his jeans down, boxers with them. His dick swings heavy, curved left over his balls. His pubes are short, dark reddish brown like his beard can get. Sam's mouth waters, inexplicably. "What?" he says, distracted.</p><p>Dean smiles at him. Honest. "C'mon. Tell me. What would you do. Two arms, nothin' but time."</p><p>He's naked—entirely naked, in Sam's room. Sam stares at him, spoiled for choice. "I'd—" he says, but it's—too much, too many options. Too much he's dreamed about and never, ever considered in waking hours, when he was sober. Too sober now, almost, to say. "I'd—I think I could pick you up."</p><p>Not what Dean was expecting. He drags his hand through his hair, kneels up on the bed. His dick's so hard, his balls hanging heavy between his legs. "Bet you could," he says, rough. "What else?"</p><p>"Jesus, Dean," Sam says, and then, while Dean fists his own dick, muscle flexing in his arm—like a display, like it's just for Sam to see—Sam says, from the pit of his gut, "I'd make you—I'd get you to suck my dick," because Dean's mouth, that's—</p><p>"Yeah," Dean says, fervent, and shoves at Sam's good shoulder—Sam heels himself back, further on the bed at a stupid off-angle, and lifts his hips while Dean tugs his jeans down, past his ass, a constricting tangle at his thighs that still lets Sam's dick slap up against his belly. Dean holds his balls in a warm grip, says <em>damn, Sammy</em>—like it's admiring, like he's—glad, and Sam touches his hair and Dean glances up at him and then licks his lips all wet, makes them shine, and then ducks down and sucks Sam's dick in. Just the head, just—his tongue lapping, ring of his lips tight.</p><p>"What the fuck," Sam breathes, and Dean pulls back and breathes hot over him, spits—shock of wet that he slides down the base with his fist, and then he goes right back down again, further, steady, so fucking good Sam can hardly stand it. Not his first time, Sam thinks, again—Dean's mouth opening up, his fist capably taking care of what he can't reach without deepthroating—and the thought's so hot-making that Sam cringes his hips up, can't help it even if he never, ever, ever does that with a woman, always careful, always so—</p><p>Dean gags, pulls back, coughs—"Oh god," Sam says—and Dean dives back down, lets Sam pump against his soft palate again, swallows, makes it good. Jesus, he's making it so good, and Sam spreads his legs as much as he can and braces his heels on the floor, rocking up because Dean doesn't care, Dean's rolling with it, and he can't imagine how—and he wants to learn this, he wants to know how to do this, to make Dean squirm and pant and groan as much as any girl ever has under Sam's mouth. He's going to get to—that's the crazy part, the craziest part, beyond how Dean's pulling off, panting hot-eyed up Sam's torso at his face, ducking down and sucking off-angle at the underside, Sam's cockhead smearing up his cheek as he goes. Sam groans, touches his hair—grabs it, long enough to grab, and guides Dean down to his balls, and groans louder, wilder, when Dean just slurps one in, soft suckle that's spiking insanity up through Sam's gut. Fuck, fuck—"Jesus, I want to fuck you so bad," Sam says, entirely honest, and Dean lets his balls go, crawls up the bed, his dick hanging heavy and smearing over Sam's t-shirt, and he kisses Sam without saying another word, his mouth salty and plush and open, and Sam reaches down, jerks Dean's dick, gets it up alongside his own with a shivery-wet drag of their skin together, and he's—not going to make it, he's going to come like this, and he whispers <em>come on, come on</em> against Dean's cheek and Dean reaches down and helps, jerks himself with his knuckles dragging against Sam's belly while Sam fists his own dick, Dean barely holding himself up on one elbow with their mouths brushing, Dean's nose crushed against Sam's cheek and his forehead digging against Sam's, and Sam lifts up, lifts his hips, sweats, Dean's smell filling up his head—bites Dean's lip because it's there and gets Dean to jerk against his stomach, his weight dropping into Sam's lap, his balls dragging against Sam's—and Sam gives up, grabs Dean's ass—god, the feel of it, the muscle thick, and uses Dean's body as leverage to push against, up and up, warm and slick and heavy and soft and here, here, here.</p><p>Moment of total silence, after. Dean's catching his breath, head dropped down so his nose is at Sam's ear, hot air puffing against Sam's neck. Sam squeezes his ass, his dick throbbing, his balls aching with all they gave up. Smeary skin, sliding together when Sam curls his hips, relaxes. Dean turns his head so his lips brush Sam's jaw. There's a few seconds, always after, where Sam wants to be absolutely anywhere but where he is—reality rearing up and grabbing him by the spine, reminding him that he doesn't get this, that it's not for him. Doesn't happen, this time. He blinks at the ceiling. Wonders.</p><p>"Made a mess," Dean says, soft. He pushes up, hips still settled firmly against Sam's. Face cautious as an apology, eyes on Sam's chest.</p><p>Sam swallows. "Help me out," he says, and Dean looks at his face and then understands. They scooch just far enough apart that Sam can sit up, and Dean's careful as he unbuckles the sling, and together they peel Sam's flannel shirt off and then Dean helps lift the t-shirt with its come stains off of Sam's head, and pulls it soft over Sam's hurt arm. Touches Sam's elbow, question, and Sam shakes his head, says, "Let me tell you later," and any other time, any other year, Dean would frown and muscle ahead because he always wants to know every damn detail, every time Sam gets hurt, but now—he bites the inside of his cheek but nods, and stands up, and helps Sam drag off his jeans, and his socks, so that they're both naked, together.</p><p>Dean looks at him, for a second. Sam feels heat rise in the hollows of his cheeks. That's all right—Dean's ears are pink, too, and a patchy flush on his chest. "You want—" Dean says, at the same time that Sam says, "Can we—" and they both stumble, and Dean looks away.</p><p>"Sit down," Sam says, and Dean does, his dick shining and nearly back to soft, his thighs strong. Sam lays back, on the bed, and Dean looks at him along his shoulder. Not frowning, but not smiling either. Sam's too tired to wrestle with it. Offers up, instead, "You can stay."</p><p>Not enough room in their beds to give up any real amount of space. Dean lies down anyway, on his side, careful of Sam's arm. The lamp's on; Sam wishes it weren't, to give the fake privacy of darkness. Maybe it doesn't matter. Dean's eyes are low, fixed on Sam's torso, or maybe looking beyond it. Sam watches his face. There was a while, he thought, maybe he wasn't ever going to see it again. In this life, anyway. He should take the chance, now that he has it.</p><p>"We haven't fucked it up, have we?" Sam says.</p><p>Dean doesn't look up. He shrugs a shoulder, his other arm tucked under his head. "I don't know," he says. Honest again. Sam wishes sometimes that he couldn't tell. "I don't know, Sam. I hope not." He twists his mouth. "Up to you."</p><p>"Not just me," Sam says. He extends his bad arm, the tendons shrieking pain, but Dean's on the bad side and he doesn't have another choice—he brushes Dean's leg, where it's curled forward just a little, and feels the warm skin. Dean's cheek sucks in on one side, his face somehow more miserable.</p><p>"I wanted this," Sam says. It comes out hard. Rotten boards bursting on a chest long-buried at sea. He swallows, hard, and then has to do it again, things sticking in his throat. "So long. It wasn't ever going to happen so I just—some stuff you don't bother thinking about, you know? I mean, what's the point."</p><p>Dean's looking at him now. Pained. "Sammy," he says, rich and low, and firms his lips. Asks, again. "How long?"</p><p>His eyes are clearest green, right now. A foot away and Sam can see every fleck of color. "There was this forest," Sam says, but trails off. Dean frowns, questioning. Sam tries to construct the image, but it's hard in the face of what's right in front of him. The forest. The day. Dean, smiling, dying, saying <em>Sammy, it doesn't get better than this. </em>The light in his hair and the shadow falling over his mouth, and what Sam would've given, what he would've killed. Would it even make sense to say? He smiles at Dean, or tries to. "Doesn't matter. Enough years—sometimes it feels like… I don't know. Always. But sometimes I just want to hit you over the head."</p><p>Dean snorts, but he doesn't smile. Fair enough. Maybe what came before's too fresh. His hand slides across the rough-weave of the blanket and he touches Sam's forearm, very lightly.</p><p>"You were crazy," he says. "That year. After Cas—when he busted down the wall, in your head. Sometimes you'd say the weirdest stuff. Talking to people who weren't there. Lucifer." Sam's hand curls into a fist, instinct, and Dean's mouth twists, rueful. "You said—I don't know, I don't remember exactly. Wasn't obvious, anyway, and I didn't get it, but it kinda—put the idea in my head. And you touched me, that time." He puts his hand on Sam's face—big cupped protection, sliding his fingers into Sam's hair. Thumb at the corner of his eye, sliding down his cheek to his lips. Possessive. Dean's watching Sam's mouth. "Like that. You—you did it before. A few times. I remembered."</p><p>Sam doesn’t, but it's hot in his chest. Weird humiliation like getting caught, absurd in the face of what they've just done but—there, anyway. He swallows again, reaches up and holds Dean's wrist. Gets Dean's eyes on his. "You know," Sam says. "When I—when I look for you, or try to get you back. This isn't why."</p><p>Dean licks his lips. "You're my brother," he says, and Sam nods. Dean rubs his thumb over Sam's bottom lip, drags his hand down to Sam's throat, to his chest. His mouth turns down, rue again. "Shouldn't that—"</p><p>He shakes his head. Sam shrugs one shoulder, and holds Dean's wrist there, over Sam's heart. "I don't know," he says. "But it's true, either way."</p><p>Enough time hiding it and the shame should just boil over, scald him into silence. Maybe they've both been through too much for that to matter, now. He's got a little spark, relief and hope, lightening his heart. There's a lot that's wrong—there's still a mark, on the arm tucked under Dean's head—but he shifts, and Sam can't see it, when he lifts up, and leans over Sam. He searches Sam's eyes, and Sam doesn't know exactly what he's thinking but maybe he can guess, from the look on his face. From his hand, heavy there, and how he's… here. Here, and nowhere else.</p><p>"I think we should get drunk," Dean says, firm, and then his mouth curls up, on one side. Small but real, and trying.</p><p>Sam squeezes his wrist. "You're buying," he says, and Dean rolls his eyes, but he touches Sam's cheek and says, "Deal," soft, and lets Sam brace against his shoulder to get upright.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <a href="https://zmediaoutlet.tumblr.com/post/618222355811090432/to-dream-of-the-next">posted here on my tumblr if you'd like to reblog</a>
</p><p> </p><p>Would appreciate any thoughts if you have them.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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